1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to an input device for a data processing system and in particular to a graphical pointing device and method for controlling a graphical pointer displayed within a display device of a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a graphical pointing device and method for controlling a graphical pointer displayed within a display device of a data processing system which enable a user to vary the speed of movement of the graphical pointer without modifying programming within the data processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within data processing systems, user interface is accomplished in a variety of ways. An increasingly common type of user interface is a graphical user interface (GUI), which provides a user with a graphical and intuitive display of information. A conventional GUI display includes a "desktop" or background upon which one or more icons, application windows, or other graphical objects are displayed. Typically, a data processing system user interacts with a GUI display utilizing a graphical pointer, which the user controls with a graphical pointing device, such as a mouse, trackball, or joystick. For example, depending upon the actions allowed by the active application or operating system software, the user can select icons or other graphical objects within the GUI display by positioning the graphical pointer over the graphical object and depressing a button associated with the graphical pointing device. In addition, the user can typically relocate icons, application windows, and other graphical objects on the desktop utilizing the well-known drag-and-drop technique.
Conventionally, the movement of the graphical pointer within the GUI display has a fixed relationship to the manipulation of the graphical pointing device over all portions of the GUI display. For example, if the user moves the graphical pointing device two units to the right, the graphical pointer responds by moving two scaled units to the right within the GUI display. However, to accommodate the preferences of a variety of users, many operating systems provide facilities which enable either an application or the user or both to set the tracking speed of the graphical pointer in relationship to the manipulation of the graphical pointing device. For example, some users prefer to set the tracking speed of the graphical pointer to a relatively high setting in order to limit the amount of manipulation required to traverse the GUI display. Alternatively, some users prefer a relatively low setting to facilitate selection of small graphical objects and other tasks which require precise manipulation of the graphical pointer.
Although the operating system software facilities that enable the user to vary the tracking speed of the graphical pointer enhance the flexibility of the GUI, such tracking speed control facilities are often inconvenient to use since the user must typically interrupt work on the current task, select an operating system icon to open a graphical pointer control window, adjust the tracking speed, and then close the graphical pointer control window in order to set the graphical pointer tracking speed. As should thus be apparent, it would be desirable to provide an improved method and system for controlling a graphical pointer within a GUI. In particular, it would be desirable to provide a graphical pointing device and method for controlling a graphical pointer which enable a user to adjust the tracking speed of the graphical pointer without modifying software settings within a data processing system.